I’m sure I’m not alone in admitting that I generally love Amazon. The access to massive product variety, frequently great prices, the whole Prime feature, and a sense that you can really trust the entire framework just makes Amazon easy to appreciate. But that trust thing… well, lately I’ve had it rocked a little bit when it comes to Amazon. Here’s the executive summary:

I have found multiple clearly fraudulent sellers in the “used” category

I’ve engaged Amazon’s customer service and investigations staff, had my suspicions confirmed and told by Amazon they’d get rid of the bogus sellers

The same sellers keep coming back, and they are pretty convincing if you don’t know better

There seems to be no way for Amazon to keep them out

Dealing with Amazon in this regard is kind of like talking with children who speak another language, and who also happen to be watching TV or something as you speak to them

Now let’s look at a real-world example.

Please note the instructions for how to engage this seller- you have to leave the Amazon framework and communicate through Gmail. We’ll go there in a bit, but also note the seller’s name “Lin.Martone”. This one has also shown up as:

LI N Martone

LinMartone

and each variant has a different gmail account to go with it. On this item, there have been NUMEROUS bogus sellers that come and go, all with the same “email me if you want this” and all with a price that’s too good to be true (hence the draw). All of this has been shared with Amazon via emails and calls. In each case, Amazon agrees fraud is in play, yet it it keeps coming back.

Being a veteran of many an investigation, I decided to follow one of these out before enaging Amazon for the first time. Here we go… bogus seller here is ter.kansey@gmail.com (you’ll love the spoofed Amazon page that’s coming):

Here is where it gets good- sent in my inbox, a very official looking “Amazon page” complete with bogus order number. I have to think that at this point, many shoppers might be fooled.

This person was trying to get me to buy an Amazon gift card, and read them the number as payment for an item that would most assuredly never come. When I called Amazon and shared this all with them, I found a number of challenges in dealing with customer service.

You can’t share any of these sorts of screenshots- only email headers (which I did)

When I mentioned fake order numbers and well-crafted fake phishing style pages being provided via email, I don’t know if it even registered with the person I was speaking with

I pointed out over multiple calls and online reports at least half a dozen bogus “sellers” on this item alone, all with same methodology

You get the general feeling that Amazon could really care less, and that you are a bit of a bother when you engage them on this over the phone

The same “sellers” keep coming back

That anyone can join the Amazon used market as seller and then be allowed to tell customers to go through email and break Amazon’s rules WITHOUT AMAZON THEMSELVES CATCHING IT is bewildering

And that’s it. I’ll still use Amazon for new items, but am thoroughly spooked at how loose and sloppy this end of their used market is. I hope this blog can help even one person not to get scammed by what seems to be pretty common on Amazon.

Cheers!

ADDENDUM- Thanks, Stephen Foskett for taking this issue up on your own blog, and summarizing what to watch out for: (lifted from Stephen):

Here are the hallmarks:

Too-low round-number prices roughly half the retail cost

Items sold as used but with specific notes that they’re actually new

Instructions to email to begin the transaction rather than using the Amazon site, including obviously obfuscated gmail addresses with spaces between letters

For months during the presidential campaign, comedian Rosie O’Donnell stood up to President-elect Donald Trump, matching him insult for insult.

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“I was insensitive in my RT- i am sorry for the pain i caused – it was not my intent – i am truly sorry,” she tweeted Thursday.

The Washington Times reports White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz told amnesty advocates that President Obama will not pardon illegal aliens prior to leaving office. She said a pardon does not apply to immigration cases and is not a permanent solution.

Days after the election, illegal-alien advocates started pressuring Obama to pardon all illegal aliens before he leaves office. Congressional Democrats issued their plea shortly thereafter for the 740,000 participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

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Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, there’s been an abundance of hand-wringing over the “fake news” that supposedly is rampant on social media.

Yet missing has been any kind of serious searching among the mainstream media about whether it could learn any lessons from this election—and whether reporters and editors are holding themselves accountable to their supposed values of objectivity and rigorous reporting.

And a new “study” presents Exhibit A as to why the mainstream media should reconsider its own practices.

The Southern Poverty Law Center—an organization that calls the Family Research Council an “extremist group” because of its socially conservative views on LGBT matters—reported Nov. 29 that “in the 10 days following the election, there were almost 900 reports of harassment and intimidation from across the nation.”

“Many harassers invoked Trump’s name during assaults,” the report continued, “making it clear that the outbreak of hate stemmed in large part from his electoral success.”

Cue the widespread coverage:

“Nationwide, there have been more than 867 incidents of ‘hateful harassment’ in the first days following the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center says,” reported CNN.

“In the 10 days following the November election, SPLC said it collected 867 hate-related incidents on its website and through the media from almost every state,” wrote the Associated Press.

NBC News headlined its piece on the study “Southern Poverty Law Center Reports ‘Outbreak of Hate’ After Election.”

“The 867 hate incidents described here come from two sources—submissions to the #ReportHate page on the SPLC website and media accounts,” the SPLC report states. “We have excluded incidents that authorities have determined to be hoaxes; however, it was not possible to confirm the veracity of all reports.”

In other words, who has any idea if these incidents actually happened or not?

Yet, the fact that there was no verification of these incidents didn’t stop the media from covering this “study.”

And let’s not pretend there’s no to very little chance that a Trump opponent would make up a hate crime story.

Just consider this reported hate incident in November: “The men used a racial slur, made a reference to lynching, and warned him this is Donald ‘Trump country now,’ according to the report he gave police,” reported the Boston Herald.

Yet the man wasn’t telling the truth. The Herald reported that Kevin Molis, police chief of Malden, Massachusetts, said “it has been determined that the story was completely fabricated.”

“’The alleged victim admitted that he had made up the entire story,’ saying he wanted to ‘raise awareness about...

It is commonly believed that the Middle East has the worst persecutions against Christians. But this is not true. More Christian are being slaughtered in North Korea than anywhere else. Christians are being systematically slaughtered in Nazi and Soviet style concentration camps. Recent photos from satellite imagery reveals their structures:

The domestic IT services industry hires U.S. workers and says H-1B restrictions will help them compete

IT services firms that hire U.S. workers and don't offshore work are looking forward to President-elect Donald Trump's crackdown on H-1B visa use.

This includes firms such as Rural Sourcing Inc. (RSI), an Atlanta-based domestic software development company. RSI employs about 350 people and doesn't hire workers on temporary visas. It has four development centers in Augusta, Ga.; Mobile, Ala.; Jonesboro, Ark.; and in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a new center opened this year.

These are places "not widely known as big IT markets," said Monty Hamilton, the firm's CEO. That helps to keep costs down and makes it easier to compete with offshore firms. The locations appeal to developers who don't want to relocate to coastal tech centers, he said.

The three IT services firms contacted for this story all said business is...

A pair of Filipino Muslims, members of the Ansar Al-khilafa Philippines militia, were arrested Wednesday after they planted a bomb in a garbage can near the American embassy in Manila. The bomb was constructed from an 81mm mortar round and a timer. The two men initially tried to detonate the device in an adjacent park but were unable to do so, so they brought the bomb to the area near the embassy, where they were captured.

The suspects admitted under questioning that they were members of ISIS and said that they planted the bomb in an attempt to impress the terrorist organization and draw the attention of the military and the public away from the fight against militants in the southern part of the country.

You’ll remember them saying it. They said it a lot. A reluctant Trump voter would acknowledge that Trump may not be a perfect candidate or a perfect conservative, but clearly he would be a much better president than Hillary - so the best thing to do for the sake of the country would clearly be to vote for him.

The #NeverTrumpers would thunder back: There is no reason to think Trump would be better than Hillary.

Oh? I mean, that’s a pretty low bar to clear. Better than Hillary is like better than Brussel sprouts. Pretty much all you have to do is exist. It’s like getting the $100 question right on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Trump couldn’t even do that?

Not to these people. Trump was a fraud. Trump was a con man. Trump was a liberal Democrat in disguise. He was probably a Clinton plant!

This was an awfully implausible argument, but they stuck to it stubbornly because it was the only way to knock down the best argument reluctant conservatives had for backing Trump. If they could somehow make the case that there really was no difference between Trump and...

On issues mattering most, The Times shamelessly publishes state and corporate propaganda, pretending it’s all the news fit to print.

Along with other media scoundrels, it long ago lost credibility, why alternative sources of news, information and analysis are growing at their expense. Following reliable ones exclusively is the only way to stay informed – essential in today’s dangerous world.

The Times and other media scoundrels misinform, distort, distract and lie, vital hard truths banished from their reporting – fake news their specialty.

A previous article discussed Google and Facebook intentions to halt what they call “fake news,” claiming it’s to counter misinformation.

I asked if their real aim is censorship. Will other online companies operate the same way? Is free and open Internet content at risk? Will reliable alternative media sources be targeted for elimination?

Will dark forces controlling America only let their message be disseminated, destroying the essence of democratic free expression?

Never before in America and other Western societies was it so urgent to stay vigilant about growing tyranny replacing fundamental rights – none more important than speech, media and academic freedoms. Without them, all others are at risk.

Does the NYT advocate what demands denunciation? It appears so from a Sunday editorial, headlined “Facebook and the Digital Virus Called Fake News,” the title indicating disturbing content to follow, saying:

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Reading the media analysis on the OSU attack gives me the laughs on how they are unable to decipher the code message by that Somali ISIS lone wolf Abdul Razak Ali Artan:

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“There was no specific threat of violence”? Idiots. Real idiots.

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Noting the appointments Trump has made to fill key cabinet positions for his administration and his desire for greater unity among Americans, Romney said that "all of those things combined give me increasing hope that President-elect Trump is the very man who can lead us" to a better future.

Democrats changed a lot of rules to benefit Obama. Now, many of those changes are coming back to haunt them. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.

In the clip below, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware admits that he regrets making it easier for the president to make appointments. They never planned for this. Once Obama was elected, they really believed they would be the party in power forever.

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My grandfather would often tell us of how he would hide indoors while Fidel’s firing squads would slaughter innocent people nearby.

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